- GameJunkieJim
- |
- Exalted Mythic Member
OK, OK, Where to start... Well in this rather rambling theory, I plan to opine upon the nature of Halo Installation 004.
First off, I just want to say that I don't intend to get into the Humans = Forerunner debates. I have my own suspicions, but Flacon, Chaplain, and Eagle do all right discussing and debating them, so I'll let you read their threads and make your own conclusions.
Section A: Halo
What is Halo, how many are there, what is it's purpose, what is it's method, and why does it have atmosphere and terraform?
Loaded questions.
What is Halo? - Well, let's look back at some key quotes from Cortana and 343 GS, to see if we can't get some perspective on the question.
CortanaOn the Truth and Reconciliation
One moment Sir. Accessing Covenant battlenet. (Pause) According to the data in their networks, the ring has some kind of deep religious significance. If I'm analyzing this correctly...they believe that Halo is some kind of weapon. One with vast, unimaginable power.
Here we have an indication that Halo is something dangerous to Humanity.
CortanaIn the Control Room
This ring isn't a cudgel, you barbarian, it's something else... something much more important. The Covenant were right... this ring... it's Forerunner. Give me a second to access... yes, the Forerunner built this place, what they called a, "fortress world," in order to... no, that can't be. Oh, those Covenant fools...they must've known, there must have been signs! This alludes to a main purpose of Halo BESIDES a weapon.
343 Guilty Spark At the end of the 343 Guilty Spark level
Greetings. I am the Monitor of Installation 04. I am 343 Guilty Spark. Someone has released the Flood. My function is to prevent it from leaving this installation. But I require your assistance. Come. This way. This would imply as to Guilty Sparks main function but not necessarily the purpose of the actual Installation.
343 Guilty SparkLibrary
This installation's research facilities are most impressive! Perhaps we'll have time to see them later. This one puzzles me -- I surmise that 343 isn't acquainted with the rest of the Halo other than basic protocol. He is at his core a labratory AI. probably specifically built to monitor<!> the Flood. We make an assumption that Halo IS Installation 004, let me put this thought into your head - What if Installation 004 is ON Halo? It would explain why 343 GS hasn't seen the rest of Halo. BUT --
343 Guilty SparkLibrary[/i}
I would conjecture that the other species currently on the installation is responsible for releasing the Flood. They seem most persistant in their attempts to access restricted areas. He says on the installation when referring to the 'other' species. Could he mean 'in'? This is unlikely, as he is stil an AI and not prone to such grammatical mistakes - Could he have a different meaning? Perhaps.
343 Guilty Spark[i]Library
Why naturally the Flood is simply too dangerous to release, and mass sterilization protocols may again need to be enacted. Of course, samples were kept here after the last catastrophic outbreak...for study. It seems... that decision may have been an error. This confirms the Halo's existence BEFORE a Flood outbreak. Which discounts the idea of the Halo itself being the installation. 343 GS seems to contradict himself here - but consider that he's been talking to himself for 100,000 years.(Local Years - let me get that out of the way before I get a premature spazz...) 343 also mentions that the decision may have been an error, which would lend credence to the idea that the Halo was originally intended for something else.
343 Guilty SparkLibrary
The installation was specifically built to study and contain the Flood. Their survival as a race was dependent upon it. I am grateful to see that some of them survived to reproduce. Let's segment this - as it's an extremely loaded quote.
The Installation was specifically built to study and contain the flood. Notice that 343 GS didn't say This. If he were referring to the Halo itself - he likely would have used the correct vernacular.
Their survival as a race was dependent upon it. The basic assumption here is that 343 is referring to the Flood, since he mentioned them in the last sentence - but remember some of his random quotes as he flew around the library. He's a very unsegmented thinker. I surmise he was referring to the Forerunner, and the studying of the Flood was to study ways to immunize themselves against the Flood.
I am grateful some of them survived to reproduce This is an open statement - and I will not opine upon it at this time. I will come back to this later.
343 Guilty SparkLibrary
Protocol requires that I take possession of the Index for transport. Your organic form renders you vulnerable to infection. The Index must not fall into the hands of the Flood, before we reach the Control Room and activate the installation. Again the AI is simply following protocol, and likely hasn't explored the rest of Halo. However he mentions installation again. But he doesn't get any more specific than this. Installation does certainly have a broad meaning, and many things can be described as such.
343 Guilty SparkControl Room
Unfortunately, my usefulness to this particular endeavor has come to an end. Protocol does not allow units with my classification to... perform a task as important as the reunification of the index with the core. That final step is reserved for you, Reclaimer. Again the protocol, I only keep mentioning this to illustrate 343 GS's role more clearly. " MY classification..." This statement bolsters my belief that 343 was simply a left behind 'monitor' droid, who has had quite a while to ponder things by himself - as the recent 'visitors' Halo has been getting are probably few and far between, 343 GS probably plays up the importance of doing the one thing he's allowed to do besides "monitor"....
CortanaControl Room
You have no idea how this ring works, do you? Why the forerunners built it? Halo doesn't kill flood, it kills their food. Humans, covenant, whatever. We're all equally edible. The only way to stop the flood is to starve them to death. And that's exactly what Halo is designed to do; wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life. You don't believe me? Ask him. This is straightforward. I'll paraphrase - " Halo is designed to wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life" Not really a direct mention of Flood. But the results are arguable. It does seem to be configured for Flood. But I believe that it was much more pragmatic than that.
343 Guilty SparkControl Room
Technically, this installation's pulse has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years. But, once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the flood. For the longtime Bungiefans -- Guess how many Halos it would take to blanket the galaxy at those specifications laid out by 343 Guilty Spark? The Tru7h is here.
CortanaTwo Betrayals
The machinery in these canyons are Halo's primary firing mechanisms. They consist of three phase pulse generators that amplify Halo's signal, and allow it to fire deep into space. The power levels are enormous. I can't even begin to calculate the pulse's range. So, if we damage or destroy these generators, the monitor will need to repair them before Halo can be used. The Firing Mechanism is so accessible, that it's unlikely the Forerunner had any thought on defending it against the Flood necessarily - I think that this should tend to sway opinion to the idea that Halo is in fact a Fortress Ark. Since the planned inhabitants would have known about the benevolence and why they were there - they likely wouldn't have touched it. Halo obviously wasn't created for the Flood, if it was - then why are they locked underground? Indeed, why IS there a ground? And weather? Halo was obviously built to be inhabited by something else - I'm betting Humans. (I will not say the Humans are Forerunner - look into one of the other theory threads for info on that.) By this reasoning - if there was a threat to life in the galaxy - the Forerunner (being as massivly intelligent as they were) would have planned ahead for it. The threat could be neutralized, while the breeding stock of the galaxy was preserved in the Halos.
This would explain a bit about our own history - Assume that the Halo we've already explored had Earth normal gravity and similar atmosphere because it was intended for inhabitants from Earth. This would explain gaps in our anthropological history. Especially if you consider the age of -blam!- sapiens on this planet, which is just over 100,000 years. If Halo's "Local Years" are tuned towards Earth's years, like the atmosphere and gravity are, then the timing of the last firing of Halo coincides with the appearance of -blam!- sapiens on the Earth -- Pretty odd....
You know - I had a lot more on this - but I'm extremely lazy and now have a mess of papers all over the place - I'll leave it to those of you that like to type to flesh out things -- I thought I could do it - and I only got a tiny bit finished. Blah ----Chaplain, Eagle117, Flacon400 - You can keep this stuff....
-JIM
[Edited on 8/11/2004 7:28:38 PM]